Teen escapes, able to get license plate of van

Posted: 5:39 PM, March 13, 2013Updated: 5:39 PM, March 13, 2013

DETROIT - Detroit police are looking for the man who grabbed an 18-year-old woman off the street and sexually assaulted her in a van.

In an interview with Local 4, the victim's mother, who asked not to be identified, said she is heartbroken for her daughter. She said her daughter was with her younger brother last Friday walking in their neighborhood near 14th and Gladstone when they noticed a burgundy Dodge van driving around the area.

The mother said the girl was just a few hundred feet from their home later that night when she was grabbed from behind and forced into the same van.

The mother said her daughter told her the van seemed to be designed so that no one could get out of it because it had blacked out windows and the inside door handles were taken off.

The mother said her daughter was sexually assaulted but was able to get her hands under the passenger door side's panels and pop the lock to get away.

"It's just real bad. He took someone's innocence. My baby, of all people," the mother said. "She's having nightmares or whatever now."

She was able to get the van's Michigan license plate: CES 4776.

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